. >> i'm going to stop the subsidy to pbs. i like pbs, big bird. i actually like you, too, but i'm not going to keep spending money on things to borrow money from china to pay for it. >> cnn political analyst and editorial director of the national journal. hi, ron. >> good morning, carol. >> i know it's not the most important issue of the night. plenty of people actually think lehrer helped mitt romney by allowing him so much time to answer questions. fair? >> i don't know. he has been an important force in presidential debates. last night was not a good night for him. the new format has a lot of strength, allows you to drill down on a subject, providing sustained focus on one area at a time. and he simply did not take advantage of it. he didn't have meaningful follow-ups. he didn't challenge them. he really didn't kind of force them to move beyond their kind of comfort zone and their talking points. i think it was a tremendous missed opportunity. i bet the other moderators will learn from it and being more aggressive in using this tool that the ne